


Life isn't fair.

by Lionheart39



Category: Dr Who 1963
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionheart39/pseuds/Lionheart39
Summary: Carol Bell's last job for UNIT is to take the retiring Brigadier to the school he is going to work in. Carol reflects on the unfairness of life!
Kudos: 4





	Life isn't fair.

Carol Bell looked back at the man stood outside the wooden hut, that he was planning on turning into his home. She gave him the best smile she could muster and a final wave.

If you wanted proof that life wasn't fair you had only to look at the man who was still outwardly the proud soldier but inwardly bowed by weariness and loss, to recognise it.

Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, they hadn't even given him the courtesy of the usual promotion to Major General. She knew he hadn't expected the promotion because he had fought the brass all the way and unfortunately for him been right every time. That had been the unforgivable part of it. But if any man deserved recognition he did. 

She knew the loss of Mike Yates, had been the first real blow, then the Doctor regenerated and forgot about them all, but that was the Doctor for you, self centred. The poor Brig had counted him as a friend, but friends were there for you when you needed them, the last Doctor never was. Then John Benton had retired, but of a forced put, with all the cut backs poor old John had not been able to stay on. After that the Brig, well he had no one, apart from her, to confide in. The paper work was getting more and the battles to keep UNIT funded getting harder. She saw him crumbling under it all. She had put David, her fiancée, off as long as she could, but finally she had agreed to hand in her papers and get married. 

She had taken the Brig his coffee in, sat down and told him. Her heart nearly broke when she saw the flash of despair at another loss cross his face. But he had masked it in an instance and congratulated her and told her it was about time. He had bought them the most wonderful dinner service as a wedding present / leaving present. The next day he had flown to Geneva and when he returned a month later had told her he was leaving at the end of the week and going to work in a boy's school. He was going to run the Cadet core for a friend, who due to I’ll health, could no longer do the job.

One of her last duties was to drive him up to the school in a Land Rover. In the back was everything he owned, it was depressingly little. There was a box with the leaving gifts, a whisky decanter and tumblers presented to him by John Sudbury on behalf of the MOD and a bottle of his favourite Malt Whisky from the men. The photo's from his office wall, that depicted a lifetime of service. The photo of his daughter that had her trapped at aged five, taken the Christmas before his divorce. It had sat on his desk for years every morning he had dusted it off. The old desk chair that had been his grandfather's. A box containing countless medals and a couple of suitcases, not much to show for such a remarkable life.

Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, the man who had save humanity countless times. Who had stopped this little ball of rock being destroyed or taken over, was just being discarded. He had lost so much in defending the Earth, his marriage, his daughter and his health, because for all he would never admit it he wasn't well. 

No, like many old soldiers once they stepped out of the front line, once they put down the gun, laid aside the sword humanity had no use for them.

Life wasn't fair!

Carol Bell shed a tear.


End file.
